Page 75 of The Sound Between Us

17

ugly cry

Seren

Eight hundred people. Eight hundred fucking people just watched me fall apart in 4/4 time.

I’m somewhere backstage—a corridor lined with gilt mirrors that reflect my humiliation back at me in endless recursion. The hotel’s service wing, probably, where they keep the dirty linens and broken dreams. My hands claw at the neckline of my dress, trying to find air that doesn’t taste of champagne and public execution.

The applause is still echoing in my ears. That polite, professional clapping—industry rain on a coffin lid. They loved it; they fucking loved watching Damon Rogers’ damaged daughter perform her trauma in high definition.

I can’t breathe. The walls are closing in—hotel beige pressing at the edges of my vision, shrinking everything down to the sound of my own ragged breathing and the low hum of the ballroom, where they’re probably already dissecting my performance over crème brûlée.

“Did you see her face when he called her up?” “Absolutely electric. Raw talent.” “Just like her mother, but with more damage.”

I need out. Any exit; a fire door, a service corridor, a window I can launch myself through. Just get me out of this building before someone finds me hyperventilating in my mother’s legacy.

“Seren, wait⁠—”

Harrison’s voice cuts through the spiral, and I spin to see him at the end of the corridor.

“Don’t.” It comes out jagged, hard enough to draw blood. “Don’t you dare try to fix this.”

He steps closer, hands up. I’m some wounded thing that might bolt. “I’m not trying to fix anything; I just want to make sure you’re breathing.”

I try to push past him, but he moves, blocking the narrow corridor—not forceful, just immovable. A wall of expensive fabric and too much care.

“Move.” I shove at his chest with both hands. “Move, Harrison, I need to get out.”

But he doesn’t move; just absorbs it—my fists, my fury, all of it. “Where are you going to go? You’re three thousand miles from home with nowhere to run.”

“You don’t get to save me from this.” My voice cracks, glass under pressure. “You don’t get to be the hero in my humiliation.”

Heat shifts in his face; a quiet flicker of understanding. Not sympathy. Recognition.

“I know what it looks like when someone sets you up to shine for their benefit. I’ve been the dancing monkey in enough rooms like that one.”

The fight drains out of me so fast I almost fall. All the adrenaline, all the rage—gone. Just me; shaking, hollow. Stripped down to nerves and silk and breathlessness.

“This isn’t the same.” Even though I know it is.

“Isn’t it? The setup; the performance. The way he positioned that piano. It was always part of the script?” He takes a half-step closer. “You were magnificent. But he didn’t ask if you wanted to be.”

And that’s when I break.

Completely; spectacularly. Ugly-crying in a service corridor while Harrison Carter watches me unravel.

“I can never just be.” The sobs rip out of me. “I’m always Damon’s daughter, or Faith’s legacy, or the talented one who’s wasting her gifts. I can’t even order coffee without someone projecting their expectations onto my DNA.”

Harrison reaches for me. His hand lifts—fingers brushing the air just near my face. I flinch; but I don’t pull away.

I’m too tired to pull away.

“That song. It wasn’t his to use.”

“It wasn’t.” Quiet. “Nothing changes that.”

For a second, I almost let him in; almost lean into the warmth of his hand. But then shame slices through, and I remember who he is—what he knows.